Pepe Mar

Pepe Mar is a cognoscente of materiality at the forefront of social fluency and personal obsession. Mar excavates the ritual narratives inherent in secondhand stores, science fiction, celebrity, commercial design, and social media to create abstract and anthropomorphic barometers of contemporary culture. His rich, experiential process recalls the history of assemblage and painting. Mar heeds the call of Roland Barthes’ universal signifiers and answers with icons both appropriated and original.  The artist’s work is committed to a personal and universal exploration of cultural alienation. 

Pepe Mar was born in Mexico and lives and works in Miami, Florida. He received his BFA from California College of the Arts (CCA), San Francisco and received his MFA from Florida International University. The artist has completed residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2011), the Bronx Museum International Residency Program (2013), and The Artist-in-Residence Program at The Banff Centre (2015), among others. Current solo exhibitions include Rising Sun at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Recent exhibitions include Tesoro: Pepe Mar’s Love Letter to the Frost, at The Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum in Miami. Recent solo exhibitions include Dragonfruit at The Mattress Factory Museum of Contemporary Art, Pittsburgh (2019-2020) and You Never Should Have Crossed the Rio Grande (2021) at David Castillo Gallery. Upcoming exhibitions include a solo exhibition at the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse. In 2019, the artist’s project Varla TV was one of the installations presented during the inaugural year of Meridians, a platform for large-scale installations at Art Basel Miami Beach; the presentation was curated by Magali Arriola, Director of Museo Tamayo, Mexico City. Mar is a recipient of the Andy Warhol Foundation Wavemaker grant, the South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship, two Ellies awards and accompanying grants by Oolite Arts, and others. Mar’s work has been included in major publications such as, 100 Sculptors of Tomorrow (Thames & Hudson, 2019) and exhibitions such as, Woven at Deutsche Bank, New York and Philodendron at the Wolfsonian Museum, Miami Beach. The artist’s work has been exhibited throughout the US and abroad and is included in major collections in the US, Europe, and Latin America including public collections such as the High Museum, Atlanta; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Perez Art Museum, Miami; Museum of Latin American Art, CA; de la Cruz Collection; Everson Museum; Tampa Museum, among others. His work has appeared in The New York Times, ARTnews, Art in America, The Artnewspaper, and Artnet. In 2023, the artist will have a 15-year career survey exhibition organized by the Tampa Museum of Art, curated by Dr. Joanna Robotham, Ph.D., which will feature a comprehensive overview of the artist’s works and will be accompanied by a major scholarly publication.